“The Mountain is Out”

For Mom and Dad, who first taught me to love the Mountain.*

The mountains are calling me, and I must go.

– John Muir

There are places that loom large in the human heart.  They command our attention, ignite inspiration, fire the imagination and call us home.  Mount Rainier National Park is one of those places.

Affectionately dubbed “the Mountain” by Washington locals, Mount Rainier is a glistening centerpiece of the rugged outdoors.  She’s widely regarded as one of America’s great natural wonders, the most public symbol of the Pacific Northwest and its most venerable private icon.  The Mountain is a magnet, pulling the heart back again and again for another grand adventure.  She changes everything she touches.

The Mountain changed me.

The Mountain from Reflection Lakes - June 2010. (The Mountain's playing hide-and-seek today.)

“The Mountain is Out”

Mount Rainier and I go back nearly a half century; I first met her in the summer of 1964.  Decades later, no words sound as sweet in this Rainieraholic’s ears as “the Mountain is out.”  Folks who’ve lived in the Northwest their whole lives still stop and stare when Rainier sheds her cloud-swathed crown, strides into the cobalt blue of a clear summer sky, stretches to her full 14,411-foot glory and reigns over Northwest geography, a snowy colossus towering over metropolitan mice.

She’s that impressive.  And when “the Mountain is out” and visible from Seattle or Tacoma, it’s gonna be a good day!  It’s even better up close and personal, from our favorite campground at Ohanapecosh, in the park’s southwestern corner, and on the hiking trails that cross-stitch her magnificent flanks.  Our June 2010 visit to the park is one chapter of our decades-long Mountain story.  We’ll get to that.  But first, some context.

The Noble Mountain

I have seen the glories of Switzerland, the grandeur of the Andes,

and the grace of the beautiful cone of Fujiyama,

but among the most renowned scenery of the world,

I know of nothing more majestic or more inspiring

than the grandeur of Mount Rainier… [1]

— Bailey Willis

Professor of Geology, Stanford University

Created by an Act of Congress in 1899, Mount Rainier National Park  is the country’s fifth national park and the first national park to develop master and backcountry preservation plans.  The 235,625-acre park is perched on the western edge of the Cascade Range less than fifty miles from Puget Sound.  Ninety-seven percent of its total acreage is designated as “wilderness,” providing an escape for people seeking peace and solitude from an increasingly hectic world.

Mightiest Monarch

Of all the fire mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest…

– John Muir

The U.S. Department of Interior once described Rainier  a “frozen octopus” with “icy tentacles,” whose glaciers roar “over all precipices like congealed water falls.”  At 14,411 feet above sea level, Mount Rainier is the second highest peak[2] in the contiguous United States.  She’s also an active volcano wrapped with more than thirty-five miles of permanent ice and snow. Located in an essentially temperate coastal region, Mount Rainier has thus been dubbed “an arctic island in a temperate sea.”  It’s an apt description of the prodigious peak, mightiest of the Northwest “fire peaks.”

Mount Rainier is also the tallest and arguably, the most dangerous volcano in the Cascades.  While the mountain holds incredible destructive potential, people also see her as a sanctuary.  Native Americans came here for food, shelter, hunting, fishing, and berry gathering.  Tribes moved with the seasons and included the Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Cowlitz, Yakama and the Puyallup, who called the Mountain “their grandmother, Tacobet.”

Rainier’s broad, sweeping skirts have been partially flattened by deep canyons, valleys and other impressive fire peaks.  Says Father Timothy Sauer, “When you stand on Mount Rainer, you look in a circle, and the valleys and glaciers and rivers and ridges radiate like the spokes of a wheel.  You’re standing on the point of union, the place where everything comes together.”

This “togetherness” is part of a series of snowy peaks that dominate California, Oregon and Washington like ancient warrior chiefs whose great council fires once blazed across the world as tokens of their greatness.  Though a more peaceful tribe now, these mighty sachems plow the terrain of three states and rise like stately sentinels to dominate the Northwest landscape.  The Cascades stand proudly erect, robed in eternal snow, dominating the lesser peaks that cluster around their feet.

“A Holy Place”

The mountain stands alone, and in the distance it declares

It’s (sic) awesome solitary existence.

It’s (sic) spirit is the very soul of the Northwest.”[3]

– Sue Koeteeuw

Many people come to Mount Rainier and feel they’re entering a holy place. Words commonly used to describe the Mountain include: “Beautiful.  Awesome.  Powerful.  Wild and rugged.  Magical.  Primitive.  Majestic, natural, healing.  Sacred.”   Indeed, the power of the snowy massif is undeniable.  Its waterfall-webbed canyons, flower-filled meadows, ravines ribboned with water and magnificent old growth forests are matchless, providing unique settings for spiritual reflection and renewal.  The Mountain has magic up her sleeve.  It’s one reason we come here.  Year after year, just like the swallows, we return.  The Mountain calls us home.

Like Santa’s Sleigh

Our three-room Wenzel tent, rain fly, ground tarps, luggage, camp stove, trail mix, waterproof Redwing boots, food and all manner of hiking and camping gear is jammed into our two-door Cadillac sedan like sardines in a tin as we prepare to depart for our annual family camping trip to the Mountain.  I don’t know how husband Chris manages to cram it all in, but he has a knack for finding space and room in areas barely large enough to contain a cricket.  “Hey, I’m a professional” he grins.

He put in for this week off back in January.  Older sons Daniel (19), Nathan (17) and Sam (14) are finishing up the last week of school – and are way too cool to be caught dead tent-camping with Mom and Dad.  Josiah (11) has been counting down on the calendar like he’s awaiting the arrival of Santa’s sleigh.  The night before we plan to leave for “our” Mountain, Josiah sleeps in his clothes “to save time.”  His home school schedule allows the flexibility we prefer to schedule such trips and family outings before the summer hordes and masses descend upon what is otherwise a week of solitude and outdoor adventure unparalled in our experience.

Stevens Canyon Road @ Reflection Lakes.

On the Road…

We leave our house in coastal Washington just after 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 15, 2010.  As usual, we stop at Grand Mound to stretch our legs.  Some two hours later we arrive at the tiny mountain berg of Packwood, some twenty minutes south of Ohanapecosh and the park’s southern entrance.  We gas up and buy firewood, as usual, plus another fridge magnet

I buy a new Rainier fridge magnet every time we visit the Mountain.  Our fridge is festooned with Rainier magnets.  It’s getting more and more difficult to find a new one, but I finally decide on a “Washington” magnet that features both Rainier, Mount St. Helens, a black-tailed deer and apple blossoms.

There’s no gas inside the park, so we routinely stop at the Shell station on the northern rim of Packwood and gas up for the week.  Last year we paid $3.14 a gallon for Unleaded at this station.  This year it’s $3.12.  We’re well aware that this is a twenty to forty cent per-gallon price hike over what we’d pay elsewhere – further from the Mountain.  This close, however, it’s pretty much the only game in town; prices reflect the fact.

#A-29

We plan our annual June trip to the Mountain and Ohana so that we arrive ahead of July and August throngs and peak season.  Off-season campground rates are $12 a night; peak season is $15.  This early in the season, campsites are still open on a first-come, first-served basis.  Reservations don’t kick in until next week.  There’s a trade-off.  We are rewarded with open sites and uncrowded trails this early in the season, but weather can be iffy.  It’s warmer, drier and sunnier during peak season, but then, it’s also peak season.  We choose to tangle with uncertain weather rather than certain crowds.

It rains – sometimes heavily – on our drive through Glenoma, Randle, Mossyrock and Morton. The Mountain is obscured behind a thick bank of cloud.  We hope for clearing, but there are no guarantees this time of year.  I can tell you from experience that there’s nothing like sloshing around a campsite-turned choice Okeefenokee real estate at two in the morning to remind you to bring plenty of tarps.

So we hope and pray that our time-worn favorite campsite, Ohana #A-29, is dry and unoccupied.  It is.  Chris pauses while Josiah and I jump out of the car as we swing around the south end of the campground’s A Loop, and secure the picnic table and tent pad at #A-29.  Dad drives to the registration kiosk to pay for our first night’s stay.  It’s 10:23 a.m.

Ohanapecosh

Green runs up Rainier’s old growth forest floors, tumbles through canyons and saw-toothed ridges and rushes uphill into a lavish lushness that’s like diving head-first into a giant vat of verdure.  In the fecund parts of the park like Ohanapecosh, spring whispers through the foliage with tons of new growth.  On this wet west side of the Mountain, the soil and life are  so rich that the biomass can exceed that of a tropical rain forest.

Ohanapecosh is criss-crossed with knee-high ferns, waist-high devil’s club, red-orbed huckleberries and odiferous skunk cabbage.  Awakened from their refrigerated slumber, thickets of spindly, dry stalks and spare, leafless shrubs burst into bloom and become almost impenetrable. Across the Ohanapecosh River, Backbone Ridge is steepled with cedar and hemlock.  Today the ridge vanishes under soft brushstrokes of rain.

Like “Coming Home”

“It’s like coming home” Chris chimes as we set camp, laying out the ground tarp and pounding in tent stakes.  Setting up camp takes about an hour.  Up and at ‘em before 6:00 a.m., we’re famished by 11:30 and excavate the Coleman cooler for pre-cooked slices of Red Baron Supreme Pizza, which has been vacuum-sealed and frozen with our Kenmore Meal Saver. These contraptions are worth their weight in gold, incidentally.  The amount of time and effort they save in cooking and clean-up is beyond measure.  Over the years we’ve learned that the three cardinal rules of campground cooking are: 1) Simple 2) Simple and 3) Simple.  All we have to do with our pre-prepared, pre-cooked, individually vacuum-sealed meals is heat water, simmer, serve, eat, and toss.  See?  Simple.

Fortified with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, three kinds of bell pepper, olives, onion, and three cheeses, we saunter over to the Ohanapecosh Visitor’s Center.  This sloping, dark wood building was constructed in the 1960s as part of the park’s “Mission 66” upgrade program.  I know.  I was there.  In fact, my Dad, Tom Naas, was one of the first park service rangers to man the Ohana Visitor’s Center when it opened in ’66.

Josiah & Chris at famed fallen Douglas fir behind Ohana Visitor's Center. Tree started growing in 1215.

Today it’s staffed by two friendly, middle-aged rangers who juggle rapid-fire questions about weather, wildlife, and trail conditions like a well-oiled circus act.  The whiteboard on the east wall indicates that 121 inches of snow are on the ground at Paradise, elevation 5,400 feet, and more is coming.  The snowpack is “131% of normal.”  It’s unseasonably cold, with daytime highs in the miserly fifties.  The clouds are as gray and thin as poorhouse porridge.

As anticipated, many of our favorite hiking trails are still buried beneath blankets of snow.  We zip into our jackets, hoods up, and settle on an old favorite: the easy, gently rolling three-mile Silver Falls Loop Trail, which begins off a half-mile nature trail behind the Center, through the Ohanapecosh Hot Springs and off into the great green forest.

We hoof it to a junction with Laughingwater Creek Trail that hooks northwest.  This is a “strenuous” twelve mile round-trip trail to Three Lakes Camp and includes a 2,700 elevation gain.

Never having set foot to this path before, we follow the uphill trail for on hour or so, keeping a wary eye on the weather.  As is often the case with Rainier’s notoriously unpredictable weather, temperatures drop suddenly and precipitously.  Many’s the hiker or climber who ventured out on the trail on a bright, sunny July morning and was found shivering and muttering incoherently in a bone-chilling downpour, driving hail or a blizzard a few hours later, hypothermic.

About Hypothermia

Speaking of hypothermia, it’s a more common hiking hazard than most people think.  Hypothermia is a gradual, insidious kind of trauma.  It literally overtakes you by degrees as your body temperature drops and your natural responses become sluggish and muddled.  Hypothermia starts with mild and then increasingly violent shivering as the body tries to warm itself with muscle contractions.  It progresses to intense weariness, heaviness of movement, and a distorted sense of distance, time, and confusion, often resulting in serious errors in judgment or hallucinations.

Contrary to popular notions, relatively few victims of hypothermia die in extreme conditions.  Most die in temperate seasons, when the air temperature is nowhere near freezing.  They’re typically caught by a sudden change of conditions or combination of conditions – an abrupt drop in temperature, a cold driving rain, and sharp wind.  The problem is often compounded when they try to ford icy stream or rivers or stumble deeper into the cold, wet forest in search of an elusive short cut, getting colder, wetter and more confused in the process.

The Catch:

Ostensibly, a confused hiker is too addled to realize he or she’s confused.  I mean, if you know you’re confused, then you’re not confused, right?  Unless, of course, persuading yourself that you’re not confused is an early symptom of confusion.  Or maybe it’s an advanced symptom?  How would a confused person know?  What if my confused brain is trying to alert me about its state but I’m too worried about being confused to intercept the signal, thus adding to my confusion?  A pre-hypothermic hiker could be stumbling around witlessly, wondering why he’s stumbling around witlessly.

See?  The problem with losing your mind is that by the time you realize it’s gone, you can’t remember where you misplaced it and the chances of recovery are as likely as me sharing the entire contents of my private Hershey’s stash with the neighbor’s cat.

We keep moving.  Far from the mechanical roar of Highway 123, Laughingwater Creek crashes over boulders and skyscraper-sized downed trees, joins the chilled champagnesque waters of the Ohanapecosh River, then gallops to the Pacific in a glacier melt stampede.  We note saucer-sized elk prints and evidence of deer, red fox, squirrels, raccoon, bobcat and banana slug.  Fallen logs corduroy the trail’s ribs.  Winds swirl up from the valley floor, whipping cedar and hemlock branches into a gray-green froth.

Pin-Drop and Pungent

Laughingwater Creek Trail. Backbone Ride in background.

The forest is pin-drop quiet.  The air smells damp, pungent.  Temperatures drop as cumulonimbus clouds pile up like latte lovers at Starbucks.  Halfway up a ridge with the creek laughing on our right, we listen to the wind keen through the conifers.  We judge the sky as Josiah announces, “I think we better turn around.”

I am reluctant, wanting to find out what’s over the next hill, around the next bend.  We compromise: two “bends” instead of half a dozen, and another twenty minutes on the trail rather than ninety.  At the end of both, our sea-level lungs our bursting at the 2,000-foot altitude. Josiah is as agitated as a bear in mid-winter, and our chests are heaving like played-out balloons.

We turn around, just in time.

Munching on our own trail mix concoction of peanuts, M&Ms, dried apricots, craisins and raisins, we plunge down-trail as rain nudges through the evergreens, spattering white trillium and bunchberry dogwood, bouncing off beaver ponds and shaggy shale chutes.  The pattering rain slows momentarily and we match its soggy stride.  But it’s only Act I.  Enter hail.  Then rain whispers.  And more hail.

Is this place great, or what?

Patches of “God light”

The squall passes, revealing tattered “patches of God light” shadowing the forest.  Josiah cruises down the trail at warp speed until Dad pulls him up short with, “If you trip and fall here, it’d take us half a day to pick up the pieces.”

After awhile on the trail, time takes on an elastic quality.  One mile slides into the next, gliding into a seamless morning or afternoon.  Or both.

Galumphing back to the Silver Falls junction, we continue past newly-repaired railings, first down and then up again to the Silver Falls lookout.  Hoover-dam-sized tons of snow melt gush over the falls, thundering over the precipice like a spooked herd of Triple Crown winners.  Silver Falls cascades over rocks and boulders ranging in size from cannonball to mini-van.

“This is a first,” I quip at the falls overlook.

“Whaddya mean?” says Chris.

I nod toward the falls, cupping my hands around my mouth.  The roar of tons of water rushing over the rocks requires hollering to be heard.

“We’ve never been to Silver Falls in the rain before.”  Chris nods, Josiah rolls his eyes, and we sit down to take a few more swigs from our water bottles, gobble some more trail mix, and breathe in the cool, conifer-crisped air.  A trio of Japanese tourists snaps pictures and video footage just inside the railing.  We know from experience that the ground and rocks close to the falls can be spray-slicked even on a warm, sunny day.  It’s doubly treacherous with mist drooling out of a pewtered sky.

Access alternatives

The Silver Falls Loop can be accessed from three trailheads.  From the Ohanapecosh Campground, it’s 2.7 miles and an elevation gain of three hundred feet.  The trail starts from the B loop of the campground.  At the falls, cross the bridge and follow signs back to the campground.

From Stevens Canyon Road, it’s an easy one mile walk with an elevation gain of three hundred feet.  The average hiking time is forty-five minutes from this approach.  The trailhead is just northwest of the Steven Canyon Entrance, across the road from the trailhead for Grove of the Patriarchs.

From Route 123, it’s 0.6 miles. The trailhead starts 1.6 miles north of Ohanapecosh Campground on State Route 123.

Having hiked this trail countless times, we prefer the B Loop start, knowing that its hills are milder – or at least seem that way – carpeted with joint-cushioning forest floor duff, and a gentle rise.  The trade-off is that your knees take a beating on the return trip, so we step lively and cushion the jar to our joints with a sideways bounce step that saves wear and tear on knees, ankles, and everything else.

Thankfully, the skies clear.  Bruised clouds tumble over each other on a jagged breeze, then break into rags and thin just before dinner.

Cooking in a monsoon isn’t my favorite outdoor activity.  As usual, we’ve brought enough food to feed the Third Army.  Josiah selects hot dogs roasted over the campfire for dinner from options including chili burgers, beef stew, kielbasa and garlic potatoes, chicken nuggets or patties.  He scarfs down mandarin oranges and pineapple before we open the hymnal for a campfire sing and play “the minister’s cat.”   We clap our way through alphabetical adverbs and adjectives describing said cat up to “G,” where Josiah comes up with “gaudy, gargantuan and gingham.”  Not bad for an eleven year-old.  I’m laughing so hard on the last one that I miss the rhythm and lose as Josiah erupts in gales of laughter.

As dusk clusters around Ohanapecosh #A-29, we break out the Hershey’s chocolate bars, graham crackers and marshmallows.  “This is my favorite part about camping” Josiah chirps, stuffing another gooey sandwich into his mouth.  “It wouldn’t be camping without s’mores.”

A soft rain prattles on the rain fly around midnight and continues all night.  Chill air nips my nose and ears. Burrowing deeper into the sleeping bag, I snuggle closer to Chris to stay warm.  We’ll see what weather the morrow brings.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010: R3 (Rampart Ridge in the Rain)

Shortly after dawn Josiah unzips the tent flap, pokes his head into our queen-sized sleeping quarters and quips, “You guys just stay there and rest up where it’s warm.  I’ll get the fire going and then you can make tea.”

“Okay” I mutter.  “Just one question.  Who are you and what have you done with my son?”

As good as his word, Josiah busies himself with splitting kindling, laying a fire, going through half a box of blue-tip matches to get it going, and is patiently feeding the blaze one stick at a time as I stumble out of the tent, zipping into my jacket.

A fine mizzle sparges over our site – enough to get wet but not drenched.  Temperatures are in the mid-forties, a bit chilly for my thin southern California-native blood.  The ambient air is about the same temperature as what can be found inside most fridges.  I wish I’d brought my hooded “Nanook of the North” heavy jacket instead of my lighter, hoodless Pacific Trail version.  Anticipating logging lots of miles on the trails, I selected the latter because it weighs (considerably) less and is easier to manage on the trail.  Now I’m not so sure that swapping weight for warmth was a great idea.  Whatever it was, it’s done now and there’s nothing more to it but to stay close to the fire and keep moving.

Breakfast is sliced oranges, hot chocolate, biscuits and gravy and scrambled eggs, served piping hot out of the Meal Saver vacuum-packed bags.  Reconnoitering weather forecasts, topographic maps and potential hiking routes, we settle on an encore of a Longmire-area hike we took a few years back.

Longmire is park headquarters, about an hour’s drive from Ohanapecosh via either Stevens Canyon Road through the park, our the little-known alternative, Skate Creek Road next to the Packwood Shell station.  Influenced by the area’s natural beauty, architects and engineers built park structures using natural materials and park headquarters at Longmire has been designated a national historic district.

With no schedules, meetings or due dates to keep, we mosey around Packwood awhile, meandering in and out of whatever storefronts are open before 10:00 a.m.  We stop in at Blanton’s Grocery (IGA) so Chris can grab a cuppa Joe and run into a silver-haired, green-vested employee who cheerfully answers our questions about where we can buy extra socks and batteries.  We get to names later and find out he’s “Hal Blanton.”

I gauge Hal’s age, hoping he’s lived in Packwood most of his life, as is often the case, and launch into a question that’s been puzzling my puzzler for nearly fifty years.  “Was the Presbyterian Thrift Store in town ever a grocery store?”

Hal’s eyes widen like twin saucers.  He smiles and says, “Yes, it used to be a grocery store, from about the fifties through the eighties when the owner sold it.  Since then it’s been a few other things, a pharmacy and what-not.  Now it’s a thrift store.”

Eureka!

The first time we came through Packwood – less than a week after moving to Washington from California in 2002 – I kept my eye out for a certain store.  It was white, with a cement sidewalk out front and a wide white awning overhead.   Squat, whitewashed boards and awning swirl out of the cobwebbed corners of my mind.    It took forty-four years to positively identify it but when I did, odd as it may sound, it felt like I was greeting an old friend.  A friend from my childhood.  The thrift shop used to be the grocery store where Mom and Dad  loaded up on groceries after a three-day trip from San Diego to staff housing in Mount Rainier, where my Dad worked as a seasonal park service ranger from 1964 to 1966.

That’s what the Mountain is like.

Gone, but not forgotten

A gap of “Mountain-less years” loomed large in my life after Mom and Dad packed our bags, refitted the old luggage rack atop our blue 1959 Chevy station wagon, and exited Ohanapecosh staff housing in 1966.  I always wanted to return.  For years.  Somehow it just never happened.

Even during my involuntary “Mountain hiatus,” however, I never forgot her.  I’d watch a TV special on national parks from our San Diego living room and feel my heart tugged north.  Someone would say “Paradise Lost,” thinking Milton.  To me, “Paradise” conjured up memories of snow sledding or mountain meadows exploding in floral fireworks, ice caves, Paradise Inn.  Hazy memories from my early childhood pooled and puddled into vague snatches of fireside amphitheatre programs at Ohana, mittened hands and shared thermos of hot chocolate with Mom and my brothers.  But as years tumbled into decades, my memories grew steadily hazier, lines blurred on a horizon.

“If you could go anywhere in the world, cost not an obstacle, what one place would you want to visit before you die?” Chris asked over a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs in 1999.

I didn’t miss beat: “Mount Rainier.”  I sighed then, figuring my decades-old dream of returning to the Mountain was just that – a pipe dream.  Until 2002.  I’ve been making up for “lost time” ever since.

Making up for lost time

In Packwood we stroll into the grocery store-turned thrift shop and browse.  Josiah settles on an old olive green National Park Service (NPS) hat, which he wears proudly the rest of our stay.  I get a purple and teal fleece watch cap.  Squashing it onto my head as we walk out the door, my ears begin to warm for the first time since we arrived.

After arriving in Longmire, we shrug into our day packs, gloves, and hats and refill our water bottles and restock our snack stash.  We park in the lot abutting National Park Inn, where Chris and I stayed for our 25^th anniversary in 2008.  The Inn’s adjacent restaurant serves a divine broiled salmon, and the blackberry-apple crisp a la mode is to die for.

"Pea soup, anyone?" Rampart Ridge Trail.

We strike out on the Rampart Ridge trail, a “steep, strenuous hike” with “spectacular views” on the Wonderland Trail side, near park headquarters.  It’s steep alright, but not like the route up the Trail of the Shadows side, where you have to be part mountain goat to navigate the switchbacks and part marathon-runner to catch your breath and keep going.  The trail on this side is submerged under plenty of puddles and ankle-deep mud.  We’re into the snow line now, and clumps of the frozen stuff cluster the ground like forgotten snowmen.  The trail itself is clear.  And still steep.  The “spectacular views” are obscured by a thick collar of cloud.  The Mountain is socked in behind fog.  A smear of rain dabs at our hooded, hated heads atop the ridge.

We pause at the lookout spot and peer into a pea-soup fog.  “Let’s go!” Josiah goads, propelled into angst and downward activity by cold feet, cold hands, and the promise of a hot meal.  We break out trail mix, cheese and crackers and chocolate for a quick lunch and munch and then head down to Longmire.

Rampart Ridge Trail.

We complete the 5.5 mile loop trail in just over three hours, catch our breath, write a few postcards, mosey around National Park Inn and then pile into the car and drive back to Ohanapecosh via Stevens Canyon Road.

We’re stiff and tuckered by day’s end – it’s not the mileage, it’s the altitude –  but eventually reach a point where creaky knees and barking feet barely register.

Day vs. Distance Hiking

Speaking of “reaching a point,” it’s time for a confession: I used to feel like day hiking was a sort of “poor cousin” to the seemingly more glamorous “thru hiking” of the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trails.  Both of these trails run into thousands of miles, cross several states and require enormous energy, resources, grit and determination to complete. Somehow day hikes of a measly five, ten, or fifteen miles pale in comparison to the more weighty demands of months of mileage.  To some – trail snobs, I’ve decided – the difference between day hiking and thru-hiking is the difference between “amateur” and “professional.”  That’s what I used to think.  But after almost fifty years on the day hike circuit, I’m not so sure.

For one thing, hauling around half a condo on my back and foregoing soap and shower for weeks on end has always struck me as a peculiar form of sadism.  If that’s your cup of tea, fine.  It’s not mine.  And that’s fine, too.

“So there!”

It also struck me that although I’ve never thru-hiked the storied Appalachian Trail – or gotten mangled by a bear, mauled by a trail mugger, tangled with severe hypothermia, freeze-dried my life for half a year, or dehydrated into a prune on two legs – I’ve spent the better part of five decades on the trails and have logged significant miles on the ‘ole leather camels.  I’ve hiked since before I could walk, carried on my Dad’s back.  (This was before the days of fancy, lightweight baby backpacks.)  I’ve hiked or been told I’ve hiked in every state west of Michigan, and several Eastern Seaboard states, too.  I’ve never hiked in Alaska and don’t plan to.  This native San Diegan’s thin blood couldn’t stand the tundra thing.  And although I’ve never logged thousands of miles in a single season, I’ve logged a heckuva lot more than that over the years, in three, five, ten or fifteen-mile increments.

Ohanapecosh.

So I don’t hang my head or mumble an apology for being “only” a day hiker in the presence of studdly long-distance type hikers.  Simply put, I’ve logged enough miles in enough places over enough years to refuse “trail wuss” status.  So there!

Trail Truce

Seriously, I suggest a truce between day and distance hikers.  You amble your way.  We’ll amble ours.  We both feel the same tug.  We just choose to respond in different ways.  It’s the trail that matters, and we can enjoy it however we choose. As Jerry Ellis writes in Walking the Trail, a trail is “like climbing a tree or swinging on a vine across a creek.  A bond was made with Nature, a secret friend who was always there to award me with wonder, to promise me that life would always offer a lift with its mystery.”    Besides, how many thru-hikers take to the trail with four kids in tow?

Speaking of hiking and its close cousin, camping, each time you leave the cosseted and hygienic world of electricity, heat, and running water and hunker into the hinterlands, you go through a series of gradual transformations – a kind of gradual descent into squalor – and each time it is as if you have never done it before.  At the end of the first day you feel mildly self-conscious and grubby.  By the second day, you’re emphatically so – particularly if it’s warm.  You’re willing to pounce on a bar of soap like it’s a long-lost relative by the third day, and by the fourth – well, who cares?

Meals follow a similar pattern.  You’re finicky and fussy on day one, insisting on table cloth, hand sanitizer, clean utensils and scoured cookware.  By day two scoured cookware is an oxy-morn.  By day three you can’t even spell “hand sanitizer,” let find alone find it, and by day four you’re happily tucking in to whatever wanders across your well-worn paper plate – utensils or no.

Told ya it's GREEN!

The rain stops for dinner tonight but clouds pour out a constant mizzle overnight like a pachyderm parade on bath night.  Rain pattering on the tent awakens us in the wee hours.  We peer into a moonless night that’s as black as a coal miner’s cave at midnight.  Dry as toast, we yawn, roll over and go back to sleep.

Thursday, June 17, 2010: Grove of the Patriarchs and Paradise

Extremes are the rule rather than the exception at Mount Rainier.  Trees, some over a thousand years old, soar like conifer skyscrapers in the Grove of the Patriachs near Ohanapecosh on the park’s west side.  The stillness beneath the lush conifer canopy here mutes light like swatches of moss climbing around tree trunks muffle wind song and replay it as a whisper.

Bridge over Ohanapecosh River, en route to Grove of the Pats.

No such thing as “dull”

There’s no such thing as a “dull” trail at Mount Rainier.  The park hosts one of the country’s most renowned backcountry trails – the Wonderland Trail – which skirts the mountain for 93 miles.  We’ve hiked much of it.

On trail and off, park visitors are continuously reminded to exercise care and consideration and protect the mountain’s varied and fragile treasures.  “Stay on Trail,” “Leave no trace” and “Do not feed the animals” signs pop up throughout the park like overnight mushrooms.  Josiah’s heard it so many times that he feels perfectly within his protective rights to chastize  any litter bug within his sights.

Patriarchs

A 1.3 miles loop trail with a one hundred foot elevation gain, the Grove of the Patriarchs trail is an easy walk that winds along the aquamarine waters of the Ohanapecosh River, ending in a splendid loop of soaring conifers that unhinge any jaw.

The trail begins at the parking area northwest of the Stevens Canyon Entrance Station. Self-guiding trail signs lead hikers through an old growth forest of trees reaching three hundred feet tall and one thousand years old.  It’s 46 degrees as we pile out of the car and begin.

The shaded forest floor reveals its delights to those who pause to enjoy them: quad-petalled white bunchberry dogwoods, yellow glacier lilies, ferns, fragile, lacy threads waterfall threads.  Countless cascades sparkle and splash, rows of purple-blue lupine mirror a clear sky.  Birdsong tattoos the morning and includes:

-          Varied thrush

-          Stellar’s jays

-           American robins

-          Whu-wumping ruffled blue grouse

-          Spectacularly red-capped, yellow-breasted Western tanager

-          Various winged blurs of finches.

Early arrivals after winter releases her grip on the park, the varied thrush are the first to flutter into a mad dash of feeding, growing and reproducing before summer slides into autumn and winter descends again.

Deer fern along Grove of the Pats trail.

As mentioned earlier, the Grove of the Patriarchs trail is one of the most popular, easiest, and most crowded trails in the entire park.  We start and finish the one-mile+ loop in under an hour.  It’s getting crowded by the time we head back to the car with school groups and a troupe of silver-haired seniors outfitted with backpacks, two-liter water bottles, hiking poles,and tons of  Gore-Tex.  Talk about over-kill.    It takes longer to get in and out of all that gear than it does to just get out on the trail and walk.  But “to each, his own” I guess.

We pass the same young French couple we saw at the Ohana Vistor’s Center and on Rampart Ridge.  “Honeymooners” Chris whispers.   “How can ya tell?”  He gives me that “What, are-you-blind?” look and grins.

We take Steven’s Canyon Road to Box Canyon, stop and snap a few photos.  Then on to bushels of snow at Reflection Lakes.  I’ve never seen Box Canyon so deserted.  We’re the only car in the lot for awhile.  Of course, it’s cold and drizzling and the Mountain is still socked in.

It’s thirty-seven degrees at Reflection Lakes.  There’s not much “reflecting” going on here today, as the lakes are neck-deep in snow.  The Mountain plays her ageless game of hide and seek all day.  We snack at the lake, fending off fearless “camp robbers” (gray jays) on the lookout for a handout.  We know the sharp spires of the Tatoosh Range are behind us, but we can’t see them due to fog and clouds.

“Mount Rainier has all the rugged primitive features of Mount Everest except for the lack of oxygen that goes with higher elevations.  As far as glaciers, icefalls, rock ridges, and a true summit are concerned, Mount Rainier has them all.  The weather on Rainier can reach a severity equal to that of the highest mountain in the world.”

– Jim Whittaker, first U.S. climber to summit Everest, February 1969

Paradise

Vehicles with license plates from 23 states as well as British Columbia and Quebec pepper the parking lot at Paradise on this silver-gray day as the Mountain hides behind swirling white clouds.  Informational brochures inside the new Jackson Visitor’s Center feature almost as many different languages as Baskin Robbins.

Perched atop the Mountain’s western hip, Paradise is world-renowned for its fabulous flower fields and their fleet two-month splashes of color over the gentle meadows hugging the Mountain’s feet.  Its fabulous sub-alpine meadows feature pearly Everlasting that look like paper white daisies, yellow cinquefoil, tough, shrubby park heather, white and yellow avalanche lilies, an early bloomer that shoots up through the snow.  Also mat-like clusters of pink spreading phlox, red Sitka columbine, purple spokes of cascade asters, white clusters of Sitka valerian, and a varied palette of Indian paintbrush, a relative of the red snapdragon.

Snow.  Lots of It.

Paradise is also known for snow.  Lots of it.  On average, 680 inches of snow falls at Paradise each year.  Snow is a given at Mount Rainier.  An active volcano, the Mountain is sheathed year-round in snow and ice that’s equal to all the other Cascade volcanoes combined. If you used a scoop the size of Seattle’s Safeco Field, it would take about 2,600 scoops to remove all the snow and ice from Mount Rainier.

There are twenty-five named glaciers on Mount Rainier, the largest single glacial system in the lower forty-eight.  Olympic ski trials seem a natural here, and in fact, they were. The 1935 Winter Olympic Ski trials were held at Paradise.  Nearly 7,500 spectators and skiers gathered on April 13 and 14, 1935, for the National Downhill and Slalom Championships.  At stake for American competitors was a chance to represent the U.S. at the 1936 winter games in Germany.

After moseying around the Visitor’s Center and taking in the 2008 NPS video production in the center’s theatre, “Rainier: The Restless Giant,” we head back to campsite #A-29 at Ohanapecosh, some 3,000 feet lower, and later play the Minister’s Cat, toast s’mores and enjoy a hymn sing around the campfire.  Strolling over to the Ohanapecosh River bridge later, we spot a winged blur of red, yellow, and saffron – a Western Onager foraging for its evening meal of insects.  Above, an anemic June sunset bathes Backbone Ridge in a pale golden glow.

Back at Ohana, we wait for our vacuum-packed beef vegetable stew and roasted potatoes to heat on the Coleman cook stove.  I finish Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, a remarkable true story about one man’s adventures building schools in the outer reaches of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  I start and finish Gary Paulsen’s The River, a wilderness survival story involving a raft, a river, herds of mosquitoes and a freak lightning strike.  I came prepared with three books in my suitcase.  The third book is Walking Home, a first-person narrative by Lynn Schooler.  The author chronicles his solo journey into the Alaskan wilderness and his own humanity in cinemagraphic prose with observations like, “We are candles, I remember thinking, and the wind is rising.”

Friday, June 18, 2010: Encore! Encore!

Sun!  Trickling through the trees, sunshine tosses glittering spears of light into the Ohanapecosh River and splashes adjacent Backbone Ridge with green and gold.

I’d almost forgotten how the forest amplifies every sound and stirring – cawing crows, chattering jays, warbling wrens.  They sing in Surround Sound here.  Birdsong bursts through the morning as the sun plays hid and seek through the dense canopy of this old-growth forest.

Josiah is busily starting – or trying to start – the campfire to ward off the morning’s chilly fingers that tug at the Coleman stove, cooler, camp chairs and our noses.  I crawled into bed at around 9:00 last night, too cold to sit around outside, even next to the fire.  We all reek of eau de campfire smoke.  I have first dibbs on the shower tonight, and would almost kill for hot water, soap and shampoo!

Ohanapecosh changes clothes with the weather.  Under clouds and overcast, she dons gray-green, gloaming garb.  When sun-breaks shower her shoulders, she pulls on brilliant Kelly and emerald greens that are so light, lively and penetrating, they’re almost chartreuse.  It’s like the entire site has been dipped in a giant vat of jade or emerald and emerges dripping a thousand indescribable shades of green.  Springy green slides off the six-pointed vine maple leaves.  Spiked green dances off  five different types of fern.  Raspy gray-green slips from old ma’[s beard while spongy bright green erupts from creek side moss and flat, prickly green rustles soaring hemlock boughs.  From Paradise or any ridge of viewpoint in the park, row upon row of hill and vale bristle with stately green conifers that are a color all their own.

The weather has changed, and with it, the park’s personality.  So we opt for an encore of Reflection Lakes and Paradise as we break camp and prepare to head home.

We’re not disappointed.

Visible and Vapid

The Mountain is visible up to her neck.  A wreath of marshmallowy clouds obscures her crown.  Retracing our route from yesterday to the new Jackson Visitor’s center at Paradise, we take photos of Chris and Josiah “standing” on Mount Rainier – a bronze plaque planted in the ground near the center.  We mosey around inside the center again, taking in a second viewing of “The Restless Giant.”  This 2008 video replaces the old one the NPS has been using and re-using for like the past forty years.

Crowds thicken inside the center’s gift shop.  Josiah selects a mini thermometer/compass and I choose another pair of “Paradise earrings,” my old standard.  A plump, vociferous female ranger at the JVC desk starts haranguing Josiah about wearing his eons-out-of-date NPS hat, which I think is just plain stupid.

“Doesn’t she have anything better to do?” I hiss at Chris, who parries the piqued Ms. Vapid with, “His grandpa was a park ranger here.” She flattens like a deflated balloon. Josiah keeps wearing his hat.

After a couple hours in the center, we bid bittersweet adieus to our Mountain via the Paradise Valley Road, which just opened.  It was closed yesterday.  We opted not to tackle any Paradise trails this time, since they’re buried under truckloads of snow and we’ve slogged through plenty of snowy trails before, thank you in the extreme.

Josiah at Paradise. Tatoosh Mountains in background.

Speaking of extremes, Mount Rainier is often characterized by extremes:

The park’s “boundless nature” is an oft-cited source of inspiration. Wildlife we’ve seen frequently includes black-tailed deer, red squirrels, chipmunks, red fox, rock pikas, and hoary marmots and banana slugs, which always seem to be right in the middle of a trail-crossing just as your foot is in mid-air above them.  Predators and prey include bear, bobcat, cougar, coyote and sure-footed mountain goats.  We’ve seen bears at the park twice: an adult bear on Mazama Ridge trail last September, comfortably ensconced in a shady copse stuffing himself with blueberries, and a juvenile bear taking off uphill from Ohan’s D Loop in 2008.  That’s plenty as far as I’m concerned.

“Like coming home”

Another part of the park’s magic, some say, is the sense that entering the Mountain’s embrace is like entering “a holy place.”  Visitors report not only new adventures and experiences, but also discovering new passions and insights, perspective, solitude, and a sense of measure absent from the rest of their lives.  “It just makes me feel more alive” observes one visitor.

On sun-splashed afternoons when the varied thrush twitter, rivered laughter rims the ridges and warm Chinook winds flutter alpine frocks, “our” Mountain is certainly alive; her beauty and majesty can melt the hardest heart.

Coming to her is like coming home.

.

“The Mountain is Out” is excerpted from my forthcoming memoir, “The Mountain and Me: 50 Years with Mount Rainier and Counting.”

* Portions of this travelogue also appear at Trazzler Travel Tips.

---

[1] Mount Rainier Information Pamphlet and Map, National Park Service, Dept. of Interior, 1981, p. 1.  As quoted in Highway to Paradise, p. 57.

[2] Some place Mount Rainier in third or fourth place, depending upon source and whether or not measurements begin at the base of the mountain or at the surrounding ground.

[3] Sue Koeteeuw, as quoted by Joseph Scaly in Moods of the Mountain, Superior Publishing, 1981.

*****

From our June ’09 trip to Mount Rainier National Park.  (Check out our sister site, Take a Hike Northwest, for more.  Photo Gallery includes pix from September ’09: Sunrise, Burroughs Mountain/Frozen Lake/Sunrise Rim Loop Trail, Naches Peak, Mazama Ridge, Reflection Lakes, Paradise, Trail of the Shadows….!):

Josiah at Ohanapecosh Site A-29

Pitchin’ camp – Ohana

“Home, sweet home”

LOTS of trees – and shade – at Silver Falls, Ohana

Silver Falls

Start of Skate Creek Road, Packwood. The alternate route to the west side (Longmire & Paradise).

Ohanapecosh River

If you can read this sign, you must have really, really good eyesight. It says: "Jeffrey's Morningstar." Early wildflowers at Paradise.

New Visitor Center @ Paradise!

Paradise (Yes, there's always this much snow in June. Paradise is a world record holder for annual snowfall. The two jacketed ladies in the background are from the U.K. We took their pictures on request.)

New Visitor Center @ Paradise

Interior of new Visitor Center @ Paradise (from 2nd floor book/gift store)

Ranger's/Info. desk - new visitor center.

Visitor Center Exhibits

Exhibits

Rainier dweller

"Above the treeline" - Paradise V.C.

Newly renovated, historic Paradise Inn (lobby). This Inn is 90+ years old. Lobby furniture was hand-crafted from Alaska Yellow Cedar which grows in abundance just down the Mountain from Paradise.

Lobby - Paradise Inn. The lobby has two huge stone fireplaces - one of the north end, another on the south.

Paradise Inn lobby

The “Old Girl” – from Paradise.

Where the old visitor center used to stand.

JVC remains – June 16, 2009

Demolition

Only a memory - Jackson Visitor Center, Paradise. June 2008.

Josiah – the Kid Who Loves to Hike (except for the walking part)

“Is this fun, or what?”

LOTS more fun than it looks!

But wait, there’s more!

“Okay, so whose idea was this, anyway?”

“Yeah, right.”

"Hoofin' it..." - Owyhigh Lakes Trail.

ANOTHER "bridge"?! Oh, joy.

"Well, I guess it beats swimming... in snow-melt..."

Waaaay beyond the lakes...

Canada's just around the next bend...

Ohanapecosh River... from the Owyhigh Trail

Tipsoo Lake - sort of

"I TOLD you there was a bit of fog at Chinook Pass." Across the street from Tipsoo Lake. June 17, 2009.

Strikin’ camp…

Viewpoint near Layser Cave, off the Crispus Area Loop. Cowlitz Valley behind.

“Here we go!”

Trail to Layser Cave

Cowlitz Valley (“Looks like Eden to me!”)

To the cave

Made it!

Inside Layser Cave (Did we bring any bread crumbs? Actually, it only goes back about 30 feet or so before the cave is blocked off.)

Looking out of Layser Cave.

“We are…. here!”

“On the road again…”

"Folow the yellow brick r...." oh, whatever. Any destination along the Cispus is emerald green!

Paradise Valley Road (more or less)

"TTFN!"

Click here for  photo recaps of hikes to Naches Peak (aka: “Haagen Dazs”), Frozen Lake, and our trip to the Mountain – where else? -  to mark our Silver Anniversary.

One of these days we may even get around to posting photos from our adventures in San Diego and Biola U., the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge (hey Jonalyn and Dale – remember the “damp” weather?!), our Easter trip to Port Angeles and Hurricane Ridge (northern portion of the Oly. Peninsula), Astoria, OR and Cape Disappointment (Lewis & Clark).  Also  Shiloh Bible Camp, Seattle and the Space Needle, Cabela’s and the “Wood Bee,” opening night at The Lion King, hiking Dungenness Wildlife Refuge, boulders and beach at Half Moon Bay …

But don’t hold your breath.